Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Or, in our case, the man ahead of you at the finish line.
That’s what girls all over the country are being told when they participate in sports, whether it’s track and field or team-based sports like soccer.
That’s what Madi was told as a cross-country runner when she attended Idaho State University and had to compete against a male runner from the University of Montana. That’s what Lainey wondered about when she stepped onto the pitch as team captain of West Virginia State University’s soccer team.
Many women in our country’s history were told to simply "grin and bear it." They chose instead to forge a path that paved the way to equal opportunities for generations of girls after them.
TWO STATES DEFEND WOMEN IN SPORTS AND THEY ARE ALL THAT IS STANDING IN BETWEEN TRUTH AND DISASTER
One of those trails blazed for us was Title IX, which gave us the ability to compete in athletics fairly. But now, we’re being asked again to simply smile and stay quiet about the boys who are participating in our sports and running away – sometimes literally – with the competition.
Rather than accept this as the next stage of "progress," we decided to take action for our fairness and safety.
In Idaho, the state legislature passed a law that kept girls’ sports for the girls. Before the law had a chance to protect us, the ACLU successfully sued to block the law while it seeks to completely strike it down. The same goes for West Virginia, where the ACLU blocked a similar law in favor of a male student who has, so far, displaced almost 300 girls over 700 times in sports.
Lainey has felt the difference between playing her brothers in soccer and playing fairly against other girls. Madi has raced against – and lost to – a male athlete who once had a top finishing time in a men’s race.
We’ve seen boys beat girls like Chelsea Mitchell, Selina Soule, Alanna Smith and Ashley Nicoletti in states that openly allow male athletes in women’s sports. We’ve seen the despair that happens when someone like Lia Thomas is allowed to access women’s locker rooms before setting records in women’s swimming.
For those reasons and more, we felt compelled to join the states in defending those laws by teaming up with Alliance Defending Freedom to intervene in the lawsuits. As we’ve graduated college and have gone on to the next chapters of our lives, our cases have finally reached the highest court in our country as Attorneys General Patrick Morrisey and Raúl Labrador, along with ADF attorneys, have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear these cases and restore common sense and order to women’s sports.
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We embrace the opportunity to see girls after us stepping up to the podium as winners. After all, our collegiate sports days are over, and yet we still see this as a cause worth carrying.
If our cases aren’t heard and states aren’t allowed to protect women and girls, those little girls dreaming of being the next Simone Biles or Katie Ledecky might find themselves squaring off with an opponent who is naturally stronger and faster. That’s not fair; that’s demoralizing.
In the Paris Olympics, American women came home with over half of the total medals won by the United States – including 26 of the 40 gold medals. American women are some of the best in the world at what we do, and laws like Idaho’s and West Virginia’s encourage us to keep trying, to work harder, and to be the best versions of ourselves.
That’s why we believe the Supreme Court should settle this issue once and for all.
When equal opportunity is pushed aside for a dangerous ideology, we all lose. When a challenge comes our way, women like us aren’t afraid to use our voices so that the girls running closely behind us have a chance to shine.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM LAINEY ARMISTEAD
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM MADISON KENYON
Madison Kenyon is a former athlete at Idaho State University who intervened in defense of Idaho’s Fairness for Women in Sports Act being challenged in Hecox v. Little.
